Four Ways to Clarify
You have a draft—the next step
is to make it clear, first to yourself and then to
other readers.
It’s important to remember you are your own
first reader. You have to read your own copy to make
sure
it’s clear to you, that you are saying what you
want to say.
Now you must become a critical reader.
There are four main ways to clarify:
- DISCARD—You sense the writing
doesn't work, it hasn't gone anywhere. Rather than
belabour it, file the draft away and start again
- RECONCEIVE—You've got a
first draft; now you need to go back and recollect,
refocus and/or reorder. Because writing is recursive
(that is, it keeps circling back on itself) you
need to stand back and consider the meaning of the
whole; do a quick read with an eye to other ways
of "telling your story"
- REWRITE—There are two aspects
of rewriting:
- Revision—finding elements
that require or warrant modification or elaboration
in some way
- Editing—polishing
the text to make it appropriate for readers
Revision and editing are two very different
activities.
With revision, you review
the draft of a text from your own point of view
to discover what the text contains. Respond
to the text as if it were written by someone
else. Only the writer can do revision because
what matters is the effect of the text on the
writer.
The aim of editing is not to change
the text but to make what is there optimally readable.
It
is not necessary for a writer to do the editing; in
fact, writers who publish typically are not responsible
for
final editing. Editing is essentially a transcription
skill. If you are editing yourself, you must try to
respond to the text as a different reader.
The mistake most people make with editing is
to plunge in and start editing the language
of the text first, working from the written
line back to form and then to meaning. That's
got it backwards! You need to start with the
overall meaning. [See: Effective
Editing]
- PROOF—When you have done
all reconceiving and revising you have time to do,
then it's time to go through the text and eliminate
superficial problems that will interfere with readers
making meaning
|
